Upon entering China, foreign passport holders aged 14 to 70 are required to submit their fingerprints to authorized airport officials. (Photo : Getty Images)
Thanks to their booming economy, Chinese travelers are all over the world, going beyond mainland China.
According to the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI), 30.2 million border crossings took place in the first quarter of 2016.
Despite their busy schedules, Chinese often give time for travel. The average is 10 days for holidays and they go abroad 3.4 times a year on average. Who doesn’t want to travel when anyone can now book his flight online via travel apps or websites.
If you’re planning your next trip, check out these new Chinese online travel companies:
1) iGola. A travel metasearch start-up headquartered in Guangzhou, iGola works with hundreds of online travel agents, airlines, and other suppliers from all corners of the globe. While iGola doesn’t sell flights directly, iGola can make the booking for you. If you don’t have PayPal account, iGola deals with payment processors WeChat and Chinese credit cards.
2) Aipinji. It is an air ticket wholesaler based in Hangzhou. Skift says its Uber-style user interface is consumer-grade and stands out in the market place.
3) Huangbaoche. The booking platform aggregates tour packages and tour-guide-reservation services for outbound Chinese tourists. It has a listing of more than 100,000 Mandarin-speaking drivers and tour guides in more than 1,500 overseas travel destination cities in 80 countries. You’ll never feel lost again!
4) Baoku. It is a Beijing-based business travel and expense management company. It provides Web-based travel management tools for corporate users. Baoku lets a business travel request a manager’s okay for a trip, claim and receive approval for expenses, and make reservations for air and hotel that comply with company policy in one system. This is used by managers to analyze data and improve in decision-making.
5) Zanadu. It is an online travel agency that emphasizes luxury travel. Skift reported that Zanadu opened a store in Shanghai this year that uses virtual reality devices and content illustrating the luxury adventure travel, resort vacations, and safaris it sells online. It has also created a Zanadu Studio, a virtual reality production partner for Hilton hotel, Thailand tourism, lifestyle brands like Maserati, with content it makes available via its devices and apps.
So what are you waiting for? It's not yet too late to travel for the Lunar New Year.
